An Invisible Client (7 page)

13

KGB updated me on the investigation a couple of days after I’d had ice cream at the hospital. He always said a job would take longer than it really would, then surprised us with how quickly he could get it done.

I read the police reports while he sat in my office, wearing earbuds, listening to some new age music. He closed his eyes as though he were meditating.

The police reports were sparse. They included interviews with people at the pharmacies and grocery stores where the tainted medicine had been found, as well as interviews with the victims and the victims’ families. None of that actually helped determine what had happened. One report stated that an officer had spilled some of the tainted cough medicine on his fingers and felt ill afterward, though he’d survived after being sick for a few days.

The reports ended with a sentence stating that the investigation was ongoing. What they meant was they had nothing. The investigators speculated that the poisoner might have been a driver who delivered to the three stores. They didn’t even consider that it could’ve been someone at the plant that had made the medicine to begin with. I was looking at shoddy police work all around. The FBI had been notified and come in to complete their own investigation, but those reports weren’t available yet. I hoped they were more thorough than what I was looking at.

“Is it good?” KGB said loudly.

“No. These cops didn’t know what they were doing. They didn’t even connect the three poisonings until Joel’s nurse had his cough medicine tested. They interviewed a couple of people at Pharma-K, but just the delivery drivers. No one on the floor of the plant.”

“Hmm.”

“Damn right, ‘hmm.’” I picked up the phone and dialed the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office. When I asked for Detective Cynthia Lyne, I was transferred, and she said hello.

“Hi, Detective. My name is Noah Byron, and I’m an attorney for one of the families in the Pharma Killer case. I was wondering if I could just speak to you for a minute.”

She hesitated. “Sure.”

“Great. Well, first, it doesn’t look like there’s any interviews with any of the supervisors or executives at Pharma-K. Did you interview them?”

“We interviewed one vice president, but he didn’t have anything relevant to add.”

“And you didn’t include that report in the official case file?”

“Like I said, it wasn’t relevant. But it should be in a supplemental report somewhere.”

“What about any of the workers on the floor of the plant? The medicine is actually made there. Did you visit the plant?”

“Yes, we interviewed—I believe—three people over there.”

“But no foremen or supervisors?”

“No. They showed us their operations. We didn’t think the poison could’ve come from their end.”

“Why not?”

“They’ve got strict protocols in place. They don’t allow interaction between employees and the medicine until the inspection just before the lid is put on, and only one man at a time does the inspection.”

I thought for a second. “Who gave you the tour?”

“One of the vice presidents and their lawyer.”

Their lawyer. Walcott had been involved from early on. Again, that could just mean they were frightened about the potential for a lawsuit, or it could mean something else.

“Did anybody at the plant have criminal records? Anyone you looked into?”

“A few people, but nothing serious. Some DUIs and things like that.” She paused. “This is an ongoing investigation, Counselor. I’m strictly speaking to you out of courtesy for those families. I won’t reveal anything that I wouldn’t consider making public.”

“I understand. Did you ask Pharma-K if this had ever happened before?”

“Yes, and it never has. They’re a pretty new company. Haven’t really had time yet to screw up.”

“The medicine my client took came from Greens Groceries. There’s cameras there, and the shelf is right next to the cashiers. Did you review the video?”

She hesitated, and I knew she hadn’t obtained the video. “I think I’ve said all I’m going to say for now.”

“Okay, well, I appreciate your time, Detective.” I hung up. “Lazy all around, Anto.”

KGB looked at me and smiled.

“They didn’t even review the video at the grocery store.”

He shrugged. “Maybe they have it and are getting to it?”

“Yeah, maybe. So, did you find Debbie Ochoa?”

“No. She was fired from the company after the poisoning. She doesn’t live in the state anymore.”

“She doesn’t live in the state? This happened like three weeks ago.”

He nodded. “She moved. Tried calling. Phone is disconnected.”

“Find her, Anto. I don’t care how long it takes.”

“Will do.”

“Did you interview anyone at Pharma-K?”

He shook his head. “They would not talk. They seem scared. One man say they would be fired.”

“It’s probably more than that. I bet Walcott held a meeting with all the employees and made them sign gag orders so they couldn’t speak to anyone without a court order. We’ll have to do it in the depositions, if it gets that far.”

“You do not think it will?”

I wasn’t sure. Almost nothing about this case so far had gone the way I expected. Still, I went with what my experience said.

“I think they’ll throw enough money at us to make us go away. Olivia said this case was on TV. Did either of the other families have lawyers?”

“One, but he drop the case.”

“Why?”

“I talk to him. He say too much money to fight.”

I swallowed and leaned back in my seat. A ball of anxiety grew in the pit of my stomach. The lawyer was probably right: liability wasn’t at all clear, and this case was going to take a lot of money to investigate.

“You want I stop?” Anto said.

I watched him a second: the round, pale face and the crystal-blue eyes that took me in without judgment. “No. Keep digging. There’s something there they don’t want us to find.”

14

KGB continued the investigation, and within a few weeks, we had more than the police had in their file. We had company histories that even Pharma-K’s stockholders didn’t have. And we had background checks on every employee at the plant.

Olivia sat across from me in my office. We’d ordered in Chinese for lunch, and empty cartons littered my desk as the two of us pored over the documents KGB had collected. Olivia had a look of concentration on her face like a laser beam. It seemed like she wasn’t even blinking as she read. I was the opposite: details bored me, and I liked to focus on the big picture. I was suddenly glad she was here, and not working some bankruptcy for Raimi.

“Anything?” I finally said, leaning back in the seat and rubbing my eyes.

“Take a look at this,” she said, pulling out a page from a thick stack of papers. “It’s a statement from one of the floor workers at the plant. He quit, got another job, and so I don’t think he was scared to write this.”

I looked at the statement. It said that he and his coworkers had been ordered by higher-ups at Pharma-K not to discuss this case with anyone, and if they knew any details about it, to immediately see their supervisor to determine what to do.

“Not exactly the actions of a company with nothing to hide, is it?” she said.

I tossed the statement on the desk. “No, it’s not.”

“How many cases like this have you done before?”

“Depends what you mean. I’ve sued a lot of companies, but never one that made such a concerted effort to hide everything.”

She took a sip from a bottle of water and stared at the sunlight shining through it when she placed it back on the desk. “My mom, back when I was young, needed to be hospitalized in a mental health care center. She was in there for, like, thirty days or something. The insurance company was supposed to cover it. We got a letter saying they weren’t because the hospitalization wasn’t medically necessary. I called them every day, I emailed them, I called the police and the FBI—I was like fifteen then, so I didn’t know any better. I did everything I could, but they would only send us letters that they weren’t going to pay. No explanation, no one to talk to. They knew we were too weak to fight them on it and they took advantage of that.”

“What’d you do?”

“I couldn’t do anything. So I started learning how to knit and make jewelry at home that I could sell. The only asset my mom had was that house and I didn’t want the hospital to take it. It took me four years of monthly payments to pay them off. That’s what this is. I know it. It just feels the same, the way the company’s responding.”

“Feeling’s got nothing to do with it; we gotta convince a jury. And that takes witnesses. Make a note to subpoena that guy.”

Olivia and I drafted and sent a letter to Walcott, stating that we intended to file a claim. Two days later, his secretary called Jessica to set up a negotiation. Usually, we just spoke over the phone, but on large cases, the negotiation became a big deal. The plaintiffs would bring all their lawyers, and the defense would bring all theirs. Then we would meet on neutral ground. We would hash it out all day and see if we could reach a number both sides could live with. I’d once rented a restaurant that sat on the roof of a building in downtown Salt Lake, and we’d spent three days there, negotiating a medical malpractice case where the doctor, high on heroin, had inserted the wrong valve during a heart repair.

The meeting with Walcott was set, and I rented the same restaurant. Because they couldn’t serve other customers while we were there, the price tag was steep but worth it. We would have seclusion, food, and drink, and Walcott would be impressed that I’d sprung for it. People tended to think others were serious about something if they spent more money on it.

We headed up to the Gold Lion’s Restaurant and Grill. This time, I brought my entire team. There was no jury to be the underdog in front of. In negotiation, I wanted to be intimidating.

A long conference table had been set up in the middle of the restaurant. The owner, a man named Jerry, said hello, and I ordered wine. Walcott didn’t drink during work hours, but I thought the mood might strike him. I could get a lot more out of him if he was drunk.

Our firm’s attorneys took our places, and within minutes, Walcott’s people began to file in, lawyers all around. We had brought twelve, and they had thirteen. I texted the Commandant to get two more lawyers there immediately.

I sat in the middle of the conference table, and Bob sat across from me. Everyone exchanged pleasantries—everyone except me and Bob. We both sat quietly and only occasionally made eye contact. We waited a solid ten minutes until the conversations died down. My two additional lawyers, two people from the family law section headed by Marty, had arrived. Marty sat on one side of me, and Raimi sat on the other. Olivia was farther down, but I could see her. One of the men on the other side of the table was flirting with her.

“Shall we get started?” Bob asked.

“Certainly.”

Negotiations on a PI case at such an early stage were dangerous. Until we officially filed the complaint, the document initiating a lawsuit, we weren’t entitled to the evidence in the case. No depositions had been conducted, and no interrogatories—long legal questionnaires covering everything a lawyer could think to include—had been sent. But it worked in reverse, too: Bob didn’t know how much I knew. Both sides went into the first negotiation blind. It was a terrible way to settle cases, but I was willing to take less because I didn’t know the scope of the case, and the defense was willing to offer more because they didn’t know what I had.

“What do you want, Noah?”

“What would you like to give me, Bob?”

We sat silently again, the lawyers around us not saying anything, for a long time. Finally, Raimi pulled out his figures.

“The current medical costs for our client,” he said, “are one hundred seventy thousand and forty-two cents. This is purely special damages. General damages are estimated at three hundred and fifty thousand for pain, suffering, and emotional distress. Should the child die in the next three months, as his physicians predict, the suit would transfer to a wrongful death claim for the mother. We would at that point ask for two million, one hundred seventy-one thousand, and sixty-three cents.”

“Sixty-three cents, huh?” Bob said with a smirk.

“You know Raimi,” I said. “You ever know him to throw in numbers that haven’t been through at least a dozen calculations?”

Bob raised his eyebrows. “So you want half a million dollars now to avoid a two-million-dollar lawsuit if the boy dies. Sounds like extortion to me, Noah.”

I smiled. “I don’t want half a million dollars. Those numbers Raimi gave you, triple them. That’s how much I’m asking for. When I get that boy on the stand, no jury in the world is going to say no to me.”

“I think you overestimate how much weight juries give to the testimony of plaintiffs. After we’re through painting his mother as a gold digger looking for a quick payday, you’d be lucky to get his medicals paid for. And that’s even if you somehow proved negligence on the part of my client, which I don’t think you can.”

I leaned back in my seat. I looked over the faces of the lawyers seated across from me. These were the same lawyers who had denied me jobs, looked down on me because I hadn’t gone to the right schools, and felt that they were above me and above anybody who wasn’t like them.

“I don’t need to win this case to ruin your client. I’ll scream negligent poisoning to the media every chance I get. Who is possibly going to buy a Pharma-K-brand medicine when there’s perfectly good alternatives from companies that haven’t been accused of poisoning their customers? Doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not. People just won’t risk buying your brand.”

Bob looked over at Darren Rucker. The two exchanged glances but didn’t say anything.

“What’s your final number?” Bob asked.

“Three point five million is what I would normally ask for. But, because it’s early in the case, I’ll ask for half that. Consider also, Bob, that the other two kids who got sick from your client’s medicine haven’t approached our firm yet. When we get some media attention, maybe they’d like to join suit.”

Bob exhaled through his nose and looked to Darren. “Give us a moment.”

“Of course.”

The two of them, along with three others from their side of the table, rose and went into a separate room of the restaurant.

Raimi leaned over and said, “That’s too much. They won’t pay.”

“They’ll pay.”

“A child from a poor family doesn’t have earning capacity, Noah. They’re worth the least of any demographic. They’re invisible. Bob won’t pay, and we’ll have to litigate.”

“He’ll pay. Watch.”

A few people ordered drinks and appetizers. I rose from the table and wandered around. I found a balcony in a small room in the back and went outside. The sky was overcast, and a breeze was blowing. Rain wouldn’t be far behind. I stared out over the city I had promised myself I would conquer. It was growing so fast that if I didn’t stop to look at it sometimes, I wouldn’t recognize it the next time I did.

“Noah,” Olivia said as she came up behind me, “they’re back.”

“Thanks.”

“You okay?” she said, stepping out onto the balcony.

“Yeah, fine. I was just thinking about something from a long time ago.”

“What?”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“Tell me.”

I turned toward her. “When I first moved to this city, I swore to myself I would own it one day. That I’d be a big shot. I was just thinking about what I was like then. So hungry. I would’ve stepped over corpses to get what I wanted. I don’t know if I’m like that anymore. You think the things we want just kind of fade over time?”

“I don’t know. I know we have something inside us that doesn’t change. Not ever. Maybe you thought getting money and power was that thing for you, but you were wrong?”

“Did you grow up very poor?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t really know anything else so it never bothered me much.”

“I grew up so poor I’d be lucky most days to eat one meal. Sometimes I would have to go for two or three days without food. My shoes had so many holes in them it would’ve been just as easy to go barefoot. That kind of poverty . . . you know, people tell you when you get rich and you come from that, that it was necessary. That you wouldn’t appreciate what you have if you didn’t suffer first. It’s not true. Poverty cuts deep, and I don’t know if the pain ever leaves.”

She placed her hand on my shoulder. I straightened up and said, “Let’s not keep his highness waiting.”

I took my place at the table. Bob took his and straightened his tie. He looked at me and smiled before pouring himself a cup of water and taking a drink. He set the cup down.

“That’s high,” Bob said. “But my client doesn’t want to drag this out, and they certainly would like to help the family of anyone hurt by their product. One million flat. Payable today with a gag order barring any discussion in any public forum.”

Raimi wrote a note on the napkin in front of him that said, “Take it!”

“I’ll discuss it with my client tonight. You’ll have our answer in the morning.”

Bob rose and didn’t shake my hand. Some of the other lawyers followed suit, but some of them said good-bye. The one flirting with Olivia asked for her number, and she gave it to him. I turned away. Marty was right there, with a smile on his face.

“I did not think they would offer that.”

I shrugged. “They don’t want this in the news anymore.”

Marty, the smile still on his face, said, “I think it’s time to ditch Penny and go out and get smashed with the boys. What do you two say?”

I watched Olivia for a moment. “Lemme go to the hospital and tell them to take the offer first.”

As I drove to the hospital, I thought about how I could’ve just texted Rebecca and told Bob right then whether we would accept the offer or not. But I wanted him to stew for the night. Let him try to soothe the nerves of Pharma-K and assure them that this would all be a memory soon. I wanted at least one night where I had the upper hand.

Rebecca was in the ICU hallway, staring into the room. She was crying.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“He just . . . he just . . .”

She couldn’t speak. She threw her arms around me and sobbed.

My heart dropped. I looked into the room and saw several doctors and nurses working on Joel.

“He just stopped breathing,” she blurted through tears.

We stood in the hallway for a while, until I could get her over to some chairs and sit her down. I then went to the nurses’ station and asked them what was going on. The nurse simply said they were doing everything they could.

The door flew open, and they wheeled Joel out. Rebecca screamed. I could see him lying on the bed, but he didn’t look the way he had the last time I’d seen him. He was as white as a sheet of paper and sweating so profusely, it had soaked the pillow and his hospital gown. They wheeled him away, and Rebecca ran after him. A nurse gently took her arms and prevented her from following the crew. Joel was wheeled around the corner, then he was gone.